COSMIC FLORA

Cosmic Flora, 2018

Cardboard, construction paper, cardstock, reflective poster board, holographic poster board, newspaper, tissue paper, reflective filler paper, brown paper bags, mica, pom-poms, pipe cleaners, glitter, acrylic paint, elmer’s glue, gloss medium, hot glue. 

My mother introduced me to psychedelic art as a child. I fell into Yellow Submarine’s deep-sea universe via VHS tape, danced along with Peter Max’s star folks through thick art books. I am still captivated by the way these artists create worlds that feel familiar but completely new, expanding the layers of existence and forming portals to different perspectives. I wanted to add on to these cosmos. Carve a space to go to when I felt like my immediate world wasn’t quite as nice. For a long time, touching the stars didn’t feel possible, but gathering stardust and trying was feasible. 

I collected cardboard, felt, and my grandma’s craft supplies and built many tiny worlds. Sometimes these worlds existed between sock monsters and their friendships. Other times, boxes modulated into wildly colorful domestic compounds, complete with Muppet-like creatures to eat the hamburgers and read the books. I could never fit more than my hands into these spaces, but there was always plenty of room for me to be included. I always had a place to go, despite being too young to escape somewhere on my own.  

I keep finding places to go without leaving. Social media is a whole universe on its own. Knowledge is limitlessly close. We can talk with anyone anywhere without saying a word, or even typing. Memes are some of the best examples of these communicative possibilities. A joke can go further and further until it implodes on itself, getting buried in the timeline. A familiar feeling without name gets defined, the #relatable content is everywhere online and in our lived experiences. Astrology memes go a little further and tether between the cosmos and our earthly lives. Refinery 29 asks us to find our signs in pastries and comedies. We are either absolutely an apple fritter or contending that Pisces are not like The Office. When Refinery 29 posted THE SIGNS AS FLOWERS, however, I was hit with the same wonder I feel with Peter Max’s work. Rather than rely on the traditional birth month flower pairings, they mixed it up. Daisy and Rose are there, but they’re Gemini and Pisces instead of April and June (many people note this dynamic in the comments section). The visual of flowers being of the stars seems to say what seems far is far nearer, that there’s magic in the earth and life itself. Generating sparkle, not just depicting it or feeling that sparkling is not in our nature. We are flowers as much as we are stars as much as we are dollar store party supplies. It’s all much closer to home.